


The Watching Bastard

by Lucie_LightwoodBane



Category: Black Friday - Team StarKid, The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals - Team StarKid
Genre: Character Death, Don't Examine This Too Closely, EVERYONE is here - Freeform, Heavy Angst, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I'm Bad At Tagging, I'm Bad At Titles, Major Character Injury, Major spoilers for nightmare time episode 2, Mild Gore, Mild Language, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, no happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-19
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:42:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27102136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lucie_LightwoodBane/pseuds/Lucie_LightwoodBane
Summary: MAJOR SPOILERS FOR NIGHTMARE TIMEPicks up after the end of Time Bastard.
Relationships: Paul Matthews/Emma Perkins
Comments: 4
Kudos: 25





	The Watching Bastard

**Author's Note:**

> So Episode 2 was wild.  
> I started writing this last night after watching it and finished it between classes, so sorry if it seems a little rushed. This is basically a combination of fanfic and my theories about what the hell happened, but if you want to see my thought process behind some of it, I'm going to put it in the notes at the end.

Trapped in the box, Ted watched them suffer.

It tilted and shook around him as Tinky threw him from reality to reality. He stumbled through the corridors, clawing at the walls. Tinky laughed as he died over and over in thousands of apocalypses, only to return back to the box.

In one, it was the meteor. Paul, his wrist no longer bearing the 23 tattoo, hated that one. Emma was there too, an Emma who screamed and bled when her leg was injured. The homeless man was one of the first infected, but Tinky still refused to let him die. He watched his friends desperately trying to save themselves with a huge grin stuck to his face.  
In the end it came down to Paul, Emma and Ted. Paul and Emma tried to help Ted, even trusting him with the time and location of their ride to freedom. He betrayed them. When he died, the homeless man thought he might deserve it. Paul didn’t last long on his own after that. The homeless man watched as his best friend lay in the wreckage of the Starlight leaking blue shit from his mouth and the wounds covering his body, alternating between singing and muttering Emma’s name. Her death was at least painless. They held her down and the thing that used to be Paul turned her. She screamed until she lost her voice. The homeless man wanted so badly to save them both, the way he’d failed to save his Emma and Paul, but Tinky didn’t allow it.

In another, a naïve Lucy Stockworth fell in love with a fake ape-man. The homeless man didn’t follow when she was chased into the woods. Instead he sat beside a dying Ted. He always dies alone. Just once, he wanted to not be alone. So he sat beside him until he felt his pulse fell silent. Lucy was probably killed by Hidgens. The thought made him sad. In another universe he could have loved her.

He’s surprised to find that across all the universes there are consistencies. Emma and Paul (or whatever claims to be them) will find each other. Jane Houston will die in a crash and her husband Tom will never forgive himself. PEIP will try and save Hatchetfield. PEIP will fail. And the homeless man will watch it all happen.

In the last universe, Bill and Alice went to Watcher World. It was still agonising to watch, but at least there was a happy ending for once. What Ted remembered was Blinky. Blinky and Tinky were the same. So there could be others like them. And if he could find one of them that was sympathetic, maybe he could be freed. Suddenly, he wasn’t watching anymore. He was searching.

It took a thousand more realities for him to find Wiggly. It was Linda Monroe who led him there, promising everyone in the mall salvation if they joined her in worshipping him. She claimed to have had visions of Uncle Wiley, the mascot of the company, telling her she was to bring about the birth of Wiggly. The homeless man had heard his name before, always in conjunction with Blinky and Tinky. Something about the figure had always seemed strange to him, though he wasn’t sure just what. Still, he took it as proof of Linda’s claims and joined her.

This time, death did not return him to the box. Instead, Wiggly sensed his pain, his desire for freedom and revenge. Wiggly was kind. Wiggly saved him. Wiggly made him a deal and he accepted, subject to a few terms of his own.  
“You’re a wily frendy-wend aren’t you?”

He returned to this timeline to watch the payoff. The bomb is about to drop and they huddle together like rats. Bill is trying and failing to comfort a wailing Alice. He’s as shit at being a father as he was a friend. Little Tim Houston clings to his father’s legs and Tom’s arm is around a pale Becky Barnes. The pathetic imitation of love mocks what Jenny and Ted had. Lex Foster has silent tears streaming down her face and runs a hand through her sister’s hair as the younger girl mutters frantic prophecies nobody will understand. Of course, someone will listen to her warnings. Paul and Emma hold on to each other tightly, as though an embrace will lessen the force of a nuclear blast. Always together in death, always together in the destruction they cause with their selfishness. A weak Ted allows Charlotte to slip her hand into his and gives it a small, reassuring squeeze. He thinks they care for him and it will kill him. It already did. Ted has lost the game over and over again, because of them. Because he hesitated to leave Emma and Paul to the mercy of the infected. Because he thought that Stockworth bitch could possibly replace his Jenny. Because billions of realities ago, he loved a woman so much he tried to change time for her. And when it failed and he sought out a friend, fucking Paul stood and watched him bleed out in the alley.

The blast hits. 

He grins and returns to Wiggly. Wiggly, who showed him the truth behind his failings. Merciful Wiggly, who burned away the part of him that cared, who promised him their blood in every timeline they could reach.

Free from the box, Uncle Wiley will make them suffer.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading!  
> I'm choosing to believe Emma and Paul are human in the other realities because robot Emma doesn't seem to bleed and I doubt a robot would be able to cough up blood like Emma does in TGWDLM. Also the fact that Paul 23 has a tattoo and TGWDLM Paul doesn't seem to. I think the homeless man is in TGWDLM because Tinky is playing with Ted and sending him into different apocalypses because I seriously just need Paulkins to be wholesome again  
> I didn't see anyone talking about how Killgore calls Ted "A Wily one" but I literally fucking screamed. My new favourite theory is that Wiggly rescued this specific Ted and he became Uncle Wiley. It also fits with the way Ted died in The Hatchetfield Ape-man with blood leaking onto black and white tile.  
> This was basically just me needing a little bit of therapy after the episode so if you've read this far then thank you, you're amazing.  
> If you liked it let me know by leaving kudos or a comment but if you didn't or just don't want to it's totally fine. Thanks again for reading and I hope you guys have a great week!


End file.
